Disasters: The 43rd Fire

"Only the dead know Brooklyn," Thomas
Wolfe once wrote. For a time last week it seemed that Brooklyn knew
only the dead. Less than a week after the collision of two giant
airliners plunged a jet into the heart of town, Brooklyn echoed again
to the roar of sirens and the cries of the anguished. For 16½ hours one
snowy day last week, 3,000 men and every piece of firefighting
equipment in New York City and from as far away as suburban Yonkers
battled a raging fire in Brooklyn Navy Yard that killed...